JP 2048 - Army gets its feet wet

Army is looking for new amphibious watercraft, and it is challenging industry to break the traditional mould for these vessels.
The ADF's ability to deploy and sustain a sizeable force outside Australia should receive a significant boost around the end of 2003 when the first of Army's new amphibious watercraft begin to enter service under Phase 1a of Joint Project 2048.

Tenders for the contract to supply these craft close on May 30; it is a Category 7 project, with the acquisition phase worth between $20 and $50 million. The DMO expects to sign the prime contract to build and support these craft around March next year, with first deliveries tentatively scheduled for the end of 2003.

Deliveries of what? DMO sources declined to discuss the detail of Army's operational requirement for this project, Phase 1b of JP 2048. There are two reasons for this. First of all, Army has issued a functional specification: it wants to be able to disembark an indicative infantry battalion group from the RAN's Landing Platforms Amphibious (LPA), HMAS Manoora and Kanimbla, in a specified (but undisclosed) sea state and much faster than is currently possible using its existing LCM 8 landing craft - it reportedly seeks an improvement of at least 30 per cent.

Army hasn't specified what type of craft it requires, nor how many it wants - it has asked contenders to propose a total system with sufficient craft to meet the Army's needs over the life of type of the capability. The new craft will be part of an all-new capability and not simply a replacement for the LCM 8s - these will remain in service for the time being, operating off HMAS Tobruk; ADM understands that a final life of type for these craft hasn't been determined as yet.

Secondly, operational details have been kept close: the RFT, issued on February 5, was restricted to security pre-qualified companies. Army has not put in the public domain details of likely tactical scenarios - and especially things like the distance the new watercraft will have to cover from ship to shore, how long Army wants the disembarkation process to take, and what proportion of the battalion group might be deployed ashore by helicopter. For the amphibious warfare community these details are a crucial measure of combat capability.

There are some givens in this project: the watercraft must be of a size that allows them to be carried aboard the LPAs; they will not be required to self-deploy for long ocean passages, instead being stowed on the forward deck of the LPAs and launched and recovered using these ships' 70-tonne crane; and the key performance determinant is not the craft's speed, as such, but the time taken to disembark the men and materiel specified by the Army.

Army is challenging the contenders to be innovative - it wants a watercraft system which addresses the problems of transferring troops and equipment at sea from the LPA to the amphibious craft, and then of disembarking these at the shore.

The ADF is not setting out to emulate the US Marine Corps - it will never wield the surface warfare and air combat resources needed to mount an amphibious assault on a defended coastline, but accepts it may need to force an entry into a high-risk situation at some time in the future.

Hence the requirement for speed of disembarkation - depending on how far offshore the LPAs and their surface escorts must lie to ensure their safety, the watercraft may need to consist of air cushion vehicles or derivatives of high-speed catamaran or monohull ferries in order to meet the Army disembarkation goals.

The celebrated deployment of INCAT's high-speed catamaran HMAS Jervis Bay to East Timor in 1999 opened the eyes of the naval community to the space/time benefits of using a high-speed surface platform in the transport and logistics role. INCAT and its Australian contemporaries such as Austal Ships (see p.xx) have attracted considerable interest from both the RAN and the US Navy and Coastguard, who are keen to explore new seagoing transport and logistics concepts.

Textron Marine, which manufactures the Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC - a hovercraft) for the US Marine Corps, doesn't intend to bid for this contract, sources told ADM; the company expects to be a strong contender, however, in later Phases of JP2048.

This initial phase of JP2048 represents only one stage in an ongoing process of developing and refining an amphibious capability for the ADF. Phase 1b represents the Life of Type Extension (LOTE) of the ADF six Landing Craft Heavy (LCH) by Cairns-based Tro
Phase 2, whose year of decision is this year, will consist of a Project Definition Study (PDS) designed to determine the amphibious capability required to replace the LCHs with a new capability designed to meet the broad objectives of last year's White Paper. This study will address also the operational requirements for the eventual replacement of HMAS Tobruk, Manoora and Kanimbla. The PDS will provide costed capability options, possibly through competitive design studies. This is where players such as Textron Marine, along with builders of traditional workboats, landing craft, the new generation of high-speed ferries and big merchant and naval ships, expect to find a significant role.

This process in turn is expected to lead to the acquisition of new watercraft to replace the LCHs in Phase 3, whose year of decision is currently 2004/05. Sources have been at pains to point out that Phases 2 and 3 are not just about replacing the LCHs; the ADF will be adopting a clean-sheet approach to the development of an integrated amphibious watercraft system.

No firm date for Phase 3 of JP2048, the acquisition process, has been set as yet - this, like the Equipment Acquisition Strategy (EAS), will be determined in large part by the PDS in Phase 2. Defence sources have pointed out that the PDS will determine this requirement almost from a clean sheet, except that the watercraft system procured under Phase 1a will probably have some bearing on the configuration and possibly the numbers of vessels acquired under Phase 3. A key player in the study process will be the nascent amphibious warfare cell within HQ Australian Theatre (HQAST) which, as the most senior of the 'user groups' of this capability, will generate much of the input to the study.

Amphibiosity, as opposed to maritime mobility, is a new capability for the ADF. So HQAST is climbing a steep learning curve to develop real-world experience of both the minutiae and the higher-level command and control issues associated with amphibious warfare, as well as a robust concept of operations to underpin the requirements definition process.

A replacement for HMAS Tobruk, whose planned retirement date is 2010, could be acquired under a later phase of JP2048, if the PDS determines that a replacement for something of her unique size and configuration is necessary. But Navy thinking tends more towards a single-class replacement for Tobruk and the LPAs in order to capture technical and logistics synergies. The replacement for the LPAs (and possibly Tobruk) is tentatively programmed as a later (and still unapproved) phase of the current LPA project, JP 2027.

Industry sources who have followed this and other related projects in recent years have speculated that the eventual replacement of HMAS Tobruk, and of Manoora and Kanimbla in 2015, could be melded also with the Navy's Afloat Support project, Sea 1654, to create a single project designed to acquire and field a family (though not necessarily a homogenous class) of new amphibious and fleet replenishment ships.

Senior RAN sources have emphasised that the requirements for amphibious and afloat support vessels are so different that a single common design could not satisfy both. But there could be important synergies in their machinery and propulsion systems, sufficient to stimulate a modified progressive build program by a single prime contractor. Looking beyond operational requirements for a moment, this might become a vital program for the shipbuilding industry: given a stable order book and some economies of scale, this could be the trigger for a progressive consolidation of this industry sector, in line with Defence's requirements.

By Gregor Ferguson, Adelaide